Stay
by a. loquita
Summary: As Bigfoot recovers from injury he reflects back on first coming to the Sanctuary and on the friendship he has developed with Helen and others since his arrival.


Title: Stay  
Summary: As Bigfoot recovers from injury he reflects back on first coming to the Sanctuary and on the friendship he has developed with Helen and others since his arrival.  
Rating: Kids  
Category: Character study, gen, friendship  
Warnings: No specific spoilers, but in my mind this *could* take place after the TV premiere with flashbacks to before that time.  
A/N: Big thanks to mrspollifax for her beta work

oOoOoOoOo

He lay there, fighting for every breath. Occasionally, he'd open his eyes and all he could distinguish were blurry outlines, but they hinted at a gentle smile and long dark hair. She was there, the only one who'd ever taken the time to care, the one who'd never been afraid of him, even at the start. The one who'd saved his life, but that was merely the beginning of the list of things that he would never be able to repay her for. It was only the initial reason, after which so many others came, and they all added together to equal one thing—he'd never leave her.

"_Don't move!" Helen ordered the large creature on her infirmary table and he calmed slightly, but his arms still fought the restraints._

"_Insufferable," she grumbled under her breath as she reached for more gauze._

_He could feel the places where the bullets had entered his body, but the pain had lessened significantly. In fact, the woman was removing bandages, cleaning the wounds, and putting new bandages in place. She wasn't hurting him further. She was helping._

_He stilled completely, confused and hesitant about what to do next. He'd been running for so long that it felt odd to remain in one place._

His breathing was labored, but at least it wasn't painful. He remembers pain, especially in that first year at the Sanctuary, when he didn't understand so many things, including the fact that he could trust and let go of the past. It took him almost a year to speak, and he clung, sometimes quite literally, to the things that slowly but steadily helped him break out of his shell and into a new life.

"_How about Jason?" Helen flipped another page of the book of baby names she'd pulled from the library shelves. "Jonathon is nice. It's a very strong name. I knew a Jonathon once, and he was quite the ladies man." _

_He sat in the chair opposite her and watched her; crossed ankles, immaculate clothes, fancy shoes, her hair twisted and pinned up. But there was one piece of dark brown that had shaken loose, and the curl touched her cheek as she smiled up at him, her eyes twinkling at some humor she'd found in what she'd said._

"_Just nod," she told him, "if any of these strike your fancy."_

_He didn't move; he couldn't. The sheer power of her words kept him locked, reminding him that no one had bothered to name him as a child, and now, decades later, someone finally wanted to give him an identity. A chance to decide who he wanted to be. A choice._

_She lowered her head and turned a few more pages. "Kevin? Kyle? Laurence?" _

_Suddenly, the restraints loosened around his heart, and he moved from his chair to hers. His hands closed around her upper arms and he yanked her up out of her seat._

_She made an, "Oof," sound as he hugged her to his chest. "I guess Laurence it is then."_

_He held her tightly, and she displayed no fear of his strength. He knew that he wasn't really the strong one, not next to her._

The machines around him beeped and blipped. He'd grown accustomed to these kinds of sounds after all these years of entering her lab to bring her a meal, or while listening as she bounced ideas off him, or lending an assist if she needed additional hands for something she was working on. But now he was a patient once again, so much the same, and in so many ways transformed. It didn't surprise him in the least that his natural instinct was now reversed from once running and hiding, to these days defending and protecting. Not only Helen but especially Ashley, once she had come along.

"_Keep pedaling, no matter what," he whispered._

"_Don't let go," Ashley said, her voice also low. They both knew that Helen would be unhappy to discover them. Riding a bicycle in the house was certainly not allowed._

_But he understood Ashley more than the girl probably realized. He could smell fear, even though Ashley would never admit to being afraid of her new birthday gift. She would stick out her chin and deny it, probably giving some lame excuse as to why she simply hadn't gotten around to trying to ride her new bicycle. He figured that behind the mask of confidence, Ashley's fear of falling over had kept her from trying. And he hoped that the rugs beneath her convinced her that if she fell, it wouldn't hurt. It was worth a try._

_He gripped the back of the seat tightly. "I promise I'll be right here."_

"_OK." And she started peddling slow._

"_Faster," he said, jogging behind her, keeping the bike upright with his hold on it._

_Ashley sped up, and he smiled while letting go and watching her pedal away, down the hall._

_She yelled back at him, "I'm doing it! I'm doing it!"_

The smell of the infirmary was strong and unmistakable, and he suspected that was the case even for those who did not possess his gift. There were odors one might expect, like antiseptic and bleach, but also faint tendrils in the air of the lavender perfume Helen always wore and the oil he put on the squeaky wheel of one of her carts just last week. She probably hadn't even noticed, but that was typical of the way they operated. She had more important things to worry over and counted on him to take care of the little things.

"_Oh." Helen appeared to be startled but not upset as she halted in the doorway. "I didn't know you were in here."_

"_There was dust." He said it as if that explained the mysteries of the world. _

_She took a few steps into her office and tilted her head a little as she regarded him, as if trying to read into his actions by the look in his eyes._

"_You don't have to," she said, gesturing at the cloth in his right hand and the spray cleaner in his left. _

"_I want to."_

_How could he begin to explain the importance of this? He couldn't make full sense of it himself, let alone attempt to verbalize it to her._

_He needed to do something, anything that was productive. He couldn't just stay here, accept her help and her company, without giving her something in return. And although keeping her desk and other furniture from gathering dust was so small compared all the things she'd said and done for him, it was at least something._

_He met Helen's eyes, silently pleading for her to understand that he knew she was fully capable of taking care of herself. But in spite of that, or maybe because of it, if she could allow him to do it instead, he might finally feel a part of something. He'd feel needed._

"_I do tend to get so busy that I don't even notice." She smiled._

"_The rug upstairs in the hall needs vacuuming."_

"_Well, see, there you go. I hadn't a clue that the state of things around here had become so disastrous." He doubted that was the case, but assumed instead that she was playing along with him. The twinkle in her eye told him so._

_He nodded toward the papers and books open on her desk. "And you have that conference coming up." She was to give a lecture, but hadn't yet prepared it. _

"_That I do." She didn't even get all the words out, "Perhaps you would be so kind as to—"_

_He broke in, "Consider it done. And I'll make sure Henry has eaten lunch; you know how he gets when new servers come in."_

_She smiled wider. "Like a kid in a candy store. He doesn't come out for days." _

The sheet covering him in the infirmary was starched and stiff, seemingly perfect and unruffled. But he knew that things were not always what they appear to be. Not only was the lesson learned from his years of interacting with the others in the Sanctuary, but also from Helen herself. He moved a little and the sheet shifted, causing the light to play across it differently, the shadows becoming more pronounced in the folds of the cloth.

"_Your tea," he said, as he entered the room. He was right on time; she always liked one last cuppa just before leaving her office for the night and going upstairs to bed._

_Tonight she turned away from him, and he was confused, until he heard a sniff. He didn't know what do. He'd never thought her capable of crying. He suspected she wanted privacy, but everything inside fought against granting her wish. _

"_Thank you." She managed to sound almost normal. When she turned, her tears were gone, but there was redness in the corners of her eyes, trace evidence of what she was attempting to hide from him._

_No matter how many times she called herself abnormal, he only saw the humanity in her, and in this moment, more than ever before._

_She stood, crossing the room to stand in front of him. Then she reached out and took his hand._

"_Thank you."_

_He nodded; still not quite sure of his place here, wanting to give her something, but having no idea how to start, or what might help._

_She added, "For everything." She squeezed his hand, and held it for a few seconds more before letting go._

_He nodded again, and as she took her tea from the tray, she was instantly back to who she always was, as if something had shifted before his eyes. She was once again the strong, capable woman, who relied on no one._

The tubes and wires connected him to machines and monitors. They were telling a story, of how close he'd come to the darkness, but how he was healing now and the darkness was fading. He was coming back to Helen; he always would. Because he knew that he made terrible tea and wasn't a very good driver. Helen had the money; she deserved the finer things in life, and if she wanted to, she could hire the best butler and driver in the city, but she didn't.

She chose him instead.


End file.
